Friday, April 06, 2007

strange goings-on in the neighborhood of late

This neighborhood is getting odd. Not the 'net neighborhood, the physical one. Events so far this week:

A paramedic and fire truck pull up in front of the neighbors late at night. No evidence of smoke. After a while, they leave.

There's a high-speed chase down the street, complete with squealing tires as the pursue-ee makes a hard right turn three houses down, closely followed by at least one pursuing cop car and a helicopter.

Three cops show up at the neighbor's place (same neighboring apartment complex as for the paramedics, not sure if it's the same apartment). One knocks on the door, two others stand low on the stairs to be out of view from the peephole. They go inside and, after a while, come back out and leave.

Someone with Partners for Safe Neighborhoods came by yesterday, going door to door to promote safety. He mentioned possibly forming a neighborhood watch. It's beginning to look like that might be a good idea. This whole area is transitory renters, so anything to increase the sense of community would be welcome. Does anyone know how much of a time commitment organizing a watch takes?

Wanna make your neighbourhood safe? Go for walks regularly. Encourage your neighbours to go for walks regularly. Thieves/pimps/drug-dealers/punks don't like it when people are around to see what they do. Start this BEFORE they get a hold on the neighbourhood. Neighbourhood watch is great but if you're doing it from behind your closed door it isn't very effective, it just makes everyone paranoid.

I publish under the byline False Data . That should tell you something.

If you have a real legal question, you need to get a real lawyer who can look at the real facts of your real question and give you a real answer. Seriously. It really depends a lot on your exact facts, and the law changes all the time.

If you tell a judge "I know it's the law because someone named False Data, who lives in a different state (or country), put it on a blog," the judge will laugh at you. And then you'll lose your case.